Hot on the Trail: Why You Should Analyze User Behaviour?
Data is still the gold of our time, especially data about targeted audiences. It is a lighthouse that illuminates the way for all parties involved in the process of creating the product, from the founder to developers, designers, testers, and the marketing team. User analytics is a priceless tool that helps brands research, understand, and “hear” their audience’s voice. As a result, know the audience that will use the software and keep this idea in mind all along the way.
Impact of user analytics: statistics
- Gaining clients is 23 times more likely for data-driven businesses.
- According to 62% of retailers, their business is gaining a competitive edge through the use of information and analytics.
- Averaging 30% annual growth, insight-driven businesses are expected to displace less informed industry competitors with $1.8 trillion in annual revenue by 2021.
What is user analytics?
User analytics is the process of tracking, collecting, and analyzing information about the behavior of real users after a product launch. With user analysis, you can see how a user interacts with your app or website. What buttons they click on, where they point their mouse, how long they spend, and at what stage they drop out. Moreover, it gives opportunities to find out the “user’s path”: what they added to the cart, which pages opened, which ones they returned to, and which ones were saved. All these behavioral insights play a vital role in the decision-making process as well as in understanding strengths and weaknesses.
Having in your hands a complete history of the interaction of a particular user with your product, you can understand at what stage a potential client changed his mind about buying something, at what stage he lost interest, where he lacked information, etc.
Who needs user analytics?
User behavior metrics run through the processes of absolutely all parties involved.
Analysts and marketers use it to optimize their promotional strategy. Content marketers to optimize content and understand the effectiveness of existing pages for improvements. Product managers rely more on the user’s path to conversion as well as further behavior in the product. UX/UI designers can thus evaluate the usability and navigation of a design. SEO specialists employ user data analysis to find the keys and optimize the site for organic traffic.
What is user data?
Regardless of whether the user remains anonymous or you manage to learn more about him, you can see the data described in the previous paragraph.
User data includes such information as gender, age, and geo-data. These three criteria help you understand whether the real users who visit your site are relevant to your target audience. Second, improve the accuracy of your advertising campaigns. Relying on user data analysis, if the site is visited by users who are not suitable or do not fit into your target audience, you can make two conclusions: something went wrong with targeted advertising and you brought invalid traffic, or you have not taken into account another category of potential customers. In this case, you need to optimize your product for them as well.
Also, user information helps in segmenting all potential customers. If you have a cosmetics store but you see that among the users are guys, then we can conclude that the popularity of cosmetics is growing among all walks of life and it is time to diversify the assortment, as well as that guys buy cosmetics as gifts for their girlfriends, mothers, sisters, and grandmothers. In this case, it would be effective in terms of attracting customers to add such features as a personal consultant, a selection of popular products, or other materials that will help them make a decision.
User behavior metrics
Although the list of user analytics metrics can be different depending on the analytics tools you use, there are standard criteria that always need to be met for effective and accurate user analysis. Let’s take a look at each of them.
Views and visits
View means loading a page of the site when a visitor goes to it. A visit is the sequence of actions (activity) of one visitor on the site. You can also find traffic sources that help you determine the effectiveness of advertising or other mentions of your brand.
Session duration
According to the average session duration, it is possible to understand how much the content and design of the site meet the expectations of users. You can also evaluate specific pages and compare them. Too much time without taking a targeted action can also indicate the opposite: users cannot find the necessary information.
Visit depth
Visit depth allows you to see the number of pages users open and explore during the entire visit. This metric is a mirror of the engagement level and involvement of users in the content and offered functionality.
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Bounce rate
It stands for the number of users who visit your site and almost immediately close the page. With the help of the bounce rate, you can understand that there is something wrong with the page. For instance, the content did not meet expectations, the design was not responsive and intuitive, or there were some technical issues with your product.
Analytics tools
Tools for analyzing user behavior on digital platforms like websites, mobile apps, and other software systems are called “user behavior analytics tools” and are software programs. To find patterns and trends in user behavior, these tools frequently employ a variety of data collection techniques, such as tracking clicks, page views, and user interactions.
Here is a list of the most popular and convenient analytics tools.
Google Analytics
CleverTap
Pendo
MouseFlow
Mixpanel
Clicktale (Contentsquare)
Smartlook
Forcepoint
Fullstory
All of them have pros and cons, specific features, and payment models. For example, CleverTap is the best option for mobile-first products, while Creabl is used for tracking conversion funnels and retention factors. So, the choice directly depends on what software you have and your purposes. It is also worth remembering that the analytics system should be open to integrations with other platforms, easily scalable, have an accessible design, and have the ability to create visualized report dashboards.
User analytics advantages for business
- Understanding of your audience
- Better informed decisions
- Increased efficiency
- Higher sales
- Better brand recognition and awareness
- Increased user engagement in content
- Product changes and improvements based on insights from real users
- More personalized user experience
- Enhanced customer service
- Possibility to predict users’ reactions and expectations
- More precise targeting of advertising
- Optimized costs and less risk
- Increased repeated purchases
- Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Maximized income
Last words before you start to analyze user behavior 🙂
In this article, we disclosed what is user analytics, who can benefit from it, what is user data and why we need to analyze user behavior. Be in line not only with your targeted audience but also with real users. Build your digital product and marketing strategy with love for the people who will use it in the future.
Tell us about your thoughts and insights about using analytics systems in the comments!
